How might we make our held narratives from knowledge and experiences visible for others and our own examination?
As Humans, our brain is consistently finding a way to make its job easier. This is what allows us to be more productive and use rather little cognitive ram to complete tasks and actions throughout the day. However by not examining these narratives humans are vulnerable to creating and holding on to narratives that are simply untrue biases based on a moment in time. This could be from our interactions from childhood or more recently.
One exercise that I have found helpful for our family and for my classroom has been the rules exercise.
As mentioned before our brain thinks like a computer in some instances. What are some rules or if and then statements that you hold to be true. Here is a couple examples I came up with.
Everything needs a spot and space. Creating physical, digital and mental containers help us to sort what we need and what we need to let go of.
We can only experience a level of positive or negative emotion depending on our willingness to experience the opposite
If it takes less than 2 minutes - just do it
Ensure to be intentional to spend time living, working, playing and loving everyday.
Now lets imagine if my interactions or daily experiences do not mirror these rules. What control do I have over the situation and my interactions.
Eliminate interaction
Make the rules visible and renegotiate behaviour or rules with members of my environment.
Exercise:
List all the rules or thoughts you hold to be true. You can think about channeling your inner computer programmer
If I think, feel, see, hear, do__________ then the “right” action to take is ___________
Complete this with children, partners, colleagues and teams individually and identify potential conflicts that may occur as a result of individual narratives.
Renegotiate those rules or narratives to be supportive of the communities you participate in and then check in on these narratives quarterly.
